Mid day movement of mature bucks?

[Joe2Kool]

I've never - NEVER - seen a deer walk near one of my trail-cams and not get their picture taken. I've never - NEVER - walked near a trail-cam and not gotten my picture taken.

Hmmm. Must not be any bears or pigs in your area! (Just razzin you man!) I've walked in front of mine plenty of times without my picture being taken, only to find out that the last picture it took was a curious bear, or the back side of a pig that covered it in mud. Although, I must admit, there is usually some indication my camera has been "sabotaged." Once, it was still in place but with what appeared to be 22 bullet holes in it. Nope. Bear teeth holes...and full of water...and not taking pictures...

 

[DoubleRidge]

As for sanctuaries (on private property) being overrated, they absolutely can be made too large. In my opinion, any patch of extremely thick cover habitat exceeding about 50 acres is too large. Deer CAN spend a large amount of time in an area that big. Personally, I don't like to see individual sanctuaries exceeding about 20 acres. When we cut 100 acres of timber, we did it 7 blocks, the largest of which is 20 acres.

I'm late to the conversation...this thread covers multiple topics that are interesting...on the private land we hunt and manage we absolutely have sanctuary or refuge areas...farms around us are hunted but not over pressured....but we still allow deer a place to go without being pressured...basically there are three large blocks we dont put pressure on...but we hunt travel corridors in-between these areas and we do everything possible to keep pressure to a minimum. Our hunting in these travel corridor areas is focused during the rut and maybe a few days in December.
As for trail cam locations...we run them on the edge of these thick sanctuary areas where the travel corridors are.
Also...we have killed mature bucks before which we dont have pics of...but the majority of mature bucks we kill we have many, many pics of....also, for some bucks we will get summer velvet pics, hard horn pics and occasionally pick up their sheds..."home towners" we call them...and while some bucks absolutely do shift...all bucks dont travel for miles....especially when they have everything they need in one location with minimal pressure.....I think each property (and surrounding properties) are vasting different and trying to manage or hunt every property the same way wont work....over the years we have learned what works for our property and giving deer a place to go with no pressure works for us.

 

[DoubleRidge]

Oh...after my previous long winded post I forgot the original topic of mid day mature buck movement....looking back at the top ten bucks I've killed over the years...one was at 11:15AM and one was at 1:10PM...with one being during the last 30 minutes shooting light...then 7 of the top 10 being between day break and 10:00AM....and occasionally we will get mid day trail cam pics...but its almost always during the rut.

 

[Chickenrig]

I hunt several properties where I'm the only hunting pressure the deer get, and only a few days per year. I see spikes in midday movement on days leading up to and during high chase days, so pretty much relative to an estrus doe.

It's my belief that hunting pressure is not near as much factor in deer behavior as lots of folks tend to believe. I do believe if the hunting pressure is intense enough It can influence behavior, but I think that threshold is pretty high. For the most part deer behavior is driven by natural drivers.

I do believe we have a winner
Man as a creature believes he has way more influence on our Gods world than he really does, but whatever works for ya

 

[BSK]

Hmmm. Must not be any bears or pigs in your area! (Just razzin you man!) I've walked in front of mine plenty of times without my picture being taken, only to find out that the last picture it took was a curious bear, or the back side of a pig that covered it in mud. Although, I must admit, there is usually some indication my camera has been "sabotaged." Once, it was still in place but with what appeared to be 22 bullet holes in it. Nope. Bear teeth holes...and full of water...and not taking pictures...

That would truly suck!

And one more reason I don't want beers or hogs in my area.

 

[BSK]

.....I think each property (and surrounding properties) are vasting different and trying to manage or hunt every property the same way wont work....over the years we have learned what works for our property and giving deer a place to go with no pressure works for us.

No truer words spoken. Having the opportunity to work with properties all over the state, sometimes vastly different management practices are needed to maximize results. And that goes for both habitat management and harvest management.

 

[BigAl]

They need to get new trail-cams. I've never - NEVER - seen a deer walk near one of my trail-cams and not get their picture taken. I've never - NEVER - walked near a trail-cam and not gotten my picture taken.

I've had several instances of deer walking by or near a camera this year with no pic taken. I've noticed its been early on cold, dewey mornings, so I suspect the sensor as too much dew on it.

 

[Cull Buck Hunter]

Best public buck was at 3:00pm, just out cruising.

 

[BSK]

I've had several instances of deer walking by or near a camera this year with no pic taken. I've noticed its been early on cold, dewey mornings, so I suspect the sensor as too much dew on it.

Interesting.

 

[BSK]

In my "time of day" buck movement research, I've only been entering data for the months of November and December. I've avoided using October data because my property is not hunted in October. I suspected October data (when deer are not being hunted) would be very different than November data (when deer ARE being hunted). I assumed October - with no hunting pressure - would produce far more daylight movement than I what we see once hunters start hitting the woods and shooting deer.

But curiosity has gotten the best of me, and I've started entering this year's October data. And I'm being humbled by how wrong my assumptions were. In fact, unhunted October data appears to see far less daylight movement, and certainly less midday movement, than hunted November. Looks like the influence of the peak rut in November overpowers even the influence of hunting pressure. So far, I've gotten about 2/3rds of the month's data entered, and despite the fact several days had over 30 different buck photo-sets, not a single picture of a buck 2 1/2 or older from 10 AM to 3 PM in October.

 

[Ski]

Looks like the influence of the peak rut in November overpowers even the influence of hunting pressure.

That would have been my guess. I've said for a long time I believe hunters give themselves too much credit when it comes to pressure. Sure you can over sit one stand and cause deer to begin avoiding that spot, but it's a stretch to think our pressure dictates when they move and it's probably a lot harder to ruin a property than is normally thought. If hunting pressure was as big an influence on deer as is commonly thought, nobody would ever kill a deer on public ground. Public hunters often think hunting is so tough and they blame the pressure, but what they don't know is that they'd be seeing the same type activity if they were hunting private. Deer do what deer do without much regard for us and they don't recognize property lines.

The recent MSU study shows that an average buck has a home range of 12,000 acres, and 67% of them live their entire lives inside it while the other 33% have more than one home range. Of course some have smaller ranges but some have larger. It's why we see a buck for a few days on camera then he's gone and we think we screwed up by hunting him too hard, when in reality he just moved because that's what they do. The stats given in that study are astounding. An average buck covers miles per day and ends up 350-400yds away 24hrs later, which means he's NOT bedding in the same place every day but rather constantly making small daily circuits in a bigger annual circuit. Considering their findings it would be incredibly difficult or impossible for hunters to over pressure a buck enough that he changes his habits. What's really happening is that we see him during daylight as his circuit leaves him bedding on or near our property, but as soon as it shifts out we begin seeing him progressively later into the night until we see him no more at all. We think we over pressured him and made him nocturnal but it's not true. It's just that he has naturally shifted far enough away that when he comes through our property it is late night, and that would have happened regardless of our hunting.

 

[Hillbilly Hunter]

This buck is 6.5 cruising through at 12:47.

 

[Soft Talker]

Anyone who thinks hunting pressure does not affect "mature" buck movement, has their head up their a##, especially on heavily pounded private or public ground. You step foot in his bedroom one time, and he knows you have been there

 

[Hillbilly Hunter]

I can extract the data just for middle-aged bucks (2 1/2 and 3 1/2), but the below graph is the same information for all bucks 2 1/2 or older (including mature bucks). Notice how it is not a sudden drop in photographs as soon as daylight arrives like it was for mature bucks only. It is a nice slow progression downwards to a low point around 1-2 PM, and then a steady rise to sunset.

Can you remove at least the 2 1/2 yr old bucks from the equation since we are talking mature bucks?

 

[Hillbilly Hunter]

They need to get new trail-cams. I've never - NEVER - seen a deer walk near one of my trail-cams and not get their picture taken. I've never - NEVER - walked near a trail-cam and not gotten my picture taken.

As I said previously, 96% of all bucks we've killed since I began running trail-cam censuses had been previously photographed. And it's usually not one or two pictures but hundreds of pictures of each buck. The rare "one or two pictures" killed bucks, the bucks had just shown up on the property 24-48 hours earlier due to the rut.

I assume you are thinking in front of, he was referring to near, as in left, right, behind, or just out of range.

 

[7mmWSM]

I'll go one step further. I've used trail cameras for 20 years and absolutely love using trail cameras today, but I'm of the believe hunters and others put WAY TOO MUCH stock in trail camera photos/data, when making wholesale opinions/recommendations about daylight deer movement. For example, I hunted early November (30° at daylight) on a thicker/CRP/native grass 25 acre tract that had 4 cameras on/around the perimeter. I was "doe hunting" that morning. As you would expect, I saw 7 different bucks from the stand, and NONE of them were caught on camera. Cameras were on scrapes, trails and pinch points. Great hunt, but cameras would lead one to believe otherwise.

Another friend hunted a field one cold afternoon recently. He has three cameras around the perimeter in an attempt to catch deer entering field in the evening. He saw 25 deer in last hour, but not one trail camera pic.

These are just a few examples from this season alone. Cameras have their place, but they miss WAY MORE than they capture. My analogy it is like putting a trail camera in your closest and trying to estimate how much you and your family move around your house. Not a good representation of overall movement IMO.

Perfect examples of running cameras. I think sometimes we put too much faith in cameras. They help a lot but a buck's liable to walk out anywhere where randomly searching for a doe.

 

[BSK]

Can you remove at least the 2 1/2 yr old bucks from the equation since we are talking mature bucks?

Unfortunately, no. I divide the bucks into three categories to make assessments easier, and those categories are based on behavior. I divide the bucks into yearlings, middle-aged bucks (2 1/2 and 3 1/2), and mature (4 1/2+ - biologically and behaviorally bucks are not mature until 4 1/2). So I can look at the data for yearlings, middle-aged bucks, and mature bucks.

 

[Hillbilly Hunter]

Please post the mature buck data, if you have I apologize, i missed it.

 

[BSK]

Please post the mature buck data, if you have I apologize, i missed it.

This is mature buck pictures for the month of November, 2009-22. Even during the peak rut month, they are very nocturnal on the study property.

 

[Hillbilly Hunter]

Thanks!